Excluding Europe is a stupid idea.
It is the first DLC for AoE 4 that should be European DLCs because these would be the most popular and loud. Civilizations such as Byzantines, Nords or Spaniards would certainly be among the best sellers. In the case of Asia, the Japanese and Persians are the most missing, both of which would be sales hits.
If the developers surprise us with another pair of civs added to AoE 4 for free, I’d like them to be Byzantines and Ethiopians - the first civ as the greatest rival of the Ottomans and the second civ as another representative of Africa.
Which is also a popular misconception. If civs were to be bundled based on historical rivalries for some reason, then other civs would have a priority here. The Arab Caliphate that is already in the game, the Sassanians before them, the Bulgars in the Balkans, the Normans of Sicily or the Seljuks.
The idea that the Ottomans were a big rival of the Byzantines is more a product of the dramatic nature of the fall of Constantinople (which was just the culmination of centuries of decline and struggle against other adversaries) than an actual reflection of the empire’s historical rivalries.
I agree that the Vikings would be cool.
Japanese Campaign in Aoe4? It would be interesting, because there is no campaign for Japan in Aoe2 either.
Well, for the campaigns that already came out, there are 3 ways to count campaigns for a civ in AoE4:
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Battle Story.- Tell a rivalry of a nation with another nation in a time period, or a long war period of a nation (France: War of the 100 years, Russia: vs Mongols)
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Origin Story.-Tell stories of a certain period of time where the nation was founded (England: Norman Foundation and first kings; Mongols: Foundation of the Mongol Empire).
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Heroic Story.-Tell the story of a nation in short episodes from start to its rise or fall (Russia: Origins and Tsardom of Russia rise)
In the case of Japan, as another user already said, at least in the medieval period they did not fight against many other foreign Civs. Prior to the Kamakura period (Heian 700-1180), Japan was a ###### state of China, therefore they had no enemies with other Asian countries, it was a period of “relative peace” in regards to international conflicts, if we consider that the Mongol invasion of Japan failed 2 times because 2 hurricanes destroyed their fleets, and Japan’s wars with Korea (1592-1598).
However, what they did have was MANY, TOO MANY, ENOUGH internal wars:
- The Heian civil wars (Zenkunen War—Gosannen War—Hōgen Rebellion—Heiji Rebellion)
- The Gempei Wars, (1180 - 1185)
- The Genko War and Kenmu Restoration (1333 - 1338)
- The wars of the 2 courts, (1336 - 1392)
- Onin’s wars (1467 - 1477)
- Sengoku wars. (1467-1600)
- Rebellion of Sanada Yukimura - Siege of Osaka (1614-1615)
They are all interesting periods to deal with, practically to show how the changes of government happened. However, if we talk about “Concluding” the story, I think that the “Sengoku Wars” themselves give rise to such an interesting campaign with more than 10 scenarios, like the “100 Years War”, since Japan was in internal wars for more than 150 years (1467-1615). And if a Civ model is used that includes the Sengoku clans as passive and unique tech and bonuses, then it would be fine to just deal with the Sengoku wars. We could give it 1 sengoku war prologue scenario, 2 for Takeda and Uesugi, 3 for Oda Nobunada, 3 for Hideyoshi and 1 for Sekigahara with Ieyasu.
We could save the wars with Korea for the Korean Campaign, because in the end the Koreans win, and they would look good for a Korean campaign.
I really want Japan. I really want some new civs this summer